Re:Ask HN: What is the first thing you implement at a new co...
by MaxBarraclough on Wednesday June 20, 2018 @09:48AM
(#17355274)
> most 'ugliness' comes from bug-fixes that people encountered along the way
That's reality, sure, but there's no reason not to document it properly. Inadequate documentation seems to be assumed implicitly here.
If a (competent) reader is thinking Why on Earth does this code do that?, it means you've written unmaintainable code with too few comments around the necessary-but-ugly workarounds that you've used.
If you have properly commented everything, the reader won't mistake the necessary complexity of the code for a giant-ball-of-mud.
That's reality, sure, but there's no reason not to document it properly. Inadequate documentation seems to be assumed implicitly here.
If a (competent) reader is thinking Why on Earth does this code do that?, it means you've written unmaintainable code with too few comments around the necessary-but-ugly workarounds that you've used.
If you have properly commented everything, the reader won't mistake the necessary complexity of the code for a giant-ball-of-mud.